• Secretary
• Any Vacant Position

• Oboe
• English Horn

21st century artistic life is evolving rapidly, providing challenges and opportunities. As a performer, educator, scholar, and arts advocate, I constantly seek to make my art speak to the needs of modern life. Similarly, as a Board Member, my mission would be to provide members opportunities to practice their art, enrich their communities, and design Midsouth in ways to best serve them.

My experience could contribute meaningfully. I have been a full-time professor, adjunct educator, principal oboist, freelance musician, and private instructor. I have sold reeds, written grants, published articles, and designed outreach concerts. I have useful practical skills—I am organized, articulate, and, most importantly, am eager to make our new chapter a success.

Living in a state where diversity and inclusion are increasingly challenged, I see this position as a platform for advocacy. IDRS Midsouth can foster understanding and help us address challenges musicians face today. Let’s get started.

Dr. Kathleen Carter Bell is an active educator and performer based in Amarillo, TX, where she teaches at West Texas A&M University. Prior to relocating, Kathleen served as Lecturer of Oboe at Tennessee State University and Auburn University. Kathleen, who is Principal Oboist with the Lubbock Symphony, is also faculty for Indiana University’s Summer Music Clinic, the WTAMU Band and Orchestra Camp, and has taught multiple summers at the Interlochen Center for the Arts.

An avid performer, Kathleen has given solo and chamber recitals across the US and abroad. In 2019, she was nominated as IU’s first Seoul National University Chamber Music Festival performer. Her trio, Elicio Winds, has received multiple commissioning and recording grants and their CD, Convergence: Music and Cultural Legacy, was released in 2023. Recent and upcoming performances include a Chamber Music Amarillo performance of the Vaughan Williams Concerto, NFA, CMS National, IDRS, and ICA conferences, and the Music by Women Festival.

A dedicated educator, Bell has given masterclasses and presentations across the country and launched “Double Talk Workshop” which provides double reed resources to teachers. Kathleen has published pedagogical articles in Ala Breve and the Tennessee Musician, and in spring 2024 she was named Review Editor for the International Alliance for Women in Music Journal.

An advocate of new music, Kathleen has collaborated with multiple female composers to commission and premiere new works. Bell’s DM document, From Dionysus to Die Walküre: The Ancient Greek Aulos as a Key to Wagner’s Writing for the Oboe and English Horn, was commended by IU as a “Dissertation of High Distinction.” Kathleen earned her DM, MM and PD degrees from IU’s Jacobs School of Music and her BM degree from Baldwin Wallace Conservatory. In 2012, Kathleen was awarded the Barbara and David H. Jacobs Fellowship, granted for “excellence and leadership in the world of music.”